Superconducting materials, in suitably developed forms, and at cryogenic temperatures, can transport without overheating, many times (in excess of 10 fold, and up to 100,000 fold) the electrical current that can be practically and economically transported by resistive materials such as copper, aluminum and silver of the same cross sectional area. For the purpose of clarity in this document, electrical conductors with cross-sectional shape aspect of less than about 3 are typically but not exclusively referred to as wires, while conductors with cross-sectional shape aspect greater than about 3 (FIGS. 1, 2, 4, 6, and 9) are referred to as tapes, and bundles comprised of two or more conductors are referred to as cables. All three types can be used to produce coils that can generate very large magnetic fields, in stationary magnet applications like MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) and accelerator magnets, as well as in moving magnet applications such as in for example wind generators. These conductors can also be used to transmit very large amounts of electric power in very high current cables over large distances with very little energy loss. In the case of magnets, the interaction between the moving charge in the conductor and large magnetic field can result in very large axial forces (the Lorentz force F=IL×B where I is electrical current, L is conductor length and B is magnetic field impinging on the conductor, and × denotes cross product) in the conductor at high fields, requiring reinforced conductors with very high levels of axial stress tolerance without degradation in conductor properties, primarily its current carrying capacity.
There is known a superconducting tape reinforced by adding a reinforcement member to receive such a stress (refer to, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,059,582, U.S. Pat. No. 5,801,124, U.S. Pat. No. 5,987,342, U.S. Pat. No. 6,230,033, U.S. Pat. No. 6,711,421, A. Otto, E. J. Harley and R. Mason, Supercond. Sci. Technol. 18 (2005) S308-S312, and A. Otto, E. Podtburg, R. Mason and P. Antaya, IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, Vol 17 pp. 3071-3074).